Our monthly Sport RCT Spotlight is a great way for us to highlight fantastic schools, sports clubs, community groups and projects that are getting more people, more active across Rhondda Cynon Taf.
If you would like to tell us about a fantastic sport or physical activity project that your school, sports club or community group have completed, please email us at sportrct@rctcbc.gov.uk
Sport RCT Spotlight Hall of Fame
November 2024
Baby Swim Week 2024: In partnership with Leisure for Life we organised 5 free baby swim sessions across 4 RCT Leisure centres from October 14-18. The sessions were aimed at families with babies aged 3 months to 4 years and provided an opportunity for parents and carers to have fun in the water with their baby, whilst developing water confidence. To accompany the sessions, we also developed helpful videos for families which offered advice and guidance on ‘what to pack for a baby swimming session’ and ‘what to do in the water to develop your baby’s confidence’.
Sessions were a huge success, with 44 families (104 participants) attending. The positive feedback received has led to 7 leisure centres establishing weekly Baby Swim sessions in their pools. For more information on these sessions or the videos please visit www.rctcbc.gov.uk/babyswimweek. Click here to see our impact graphics.
October 2024
Pontypridd Pen Dragons: Our team was contacted by Amy, an ex-rugby player that wished to set up Rhondda Cynon Taf’s first women’s touch rugby team. We supported her with essential equipment and 10 week facility hire in Hawthorn. We developed marketing materials and shared the graphics on social media to help recruit members. Sessions started and numbers grew gradually over a couple of months. The group developed a relationship with Pontypridd RFC and relocated to Sardis Road for training and matches. The partnership has provided them with a new home and a long term base, with a clubhouse for social events. The team train twice a week, as well as playing in regular matches, festivals and competitions.
When establishing the group Amy hoped to attract ex-rugby players who are unable to play full contact as well as women looking for a new sport to become more active. The group currently has 40 members, and a good mix of both target groups. 32% of members were inactive prior to joining the team. Click here to see our impact graphics.
September 2024
Food and Fun 2024: The Food and Fun programme: Food and Fun is a national, fully funded Welsh Government programme administered by the Welsh Local Government Association (WLGA). Food and Fun is a school-based education programme that provides food and nutrition education, physical activity, enrichment sessions and healthy meals to children during the school summer holidays. This year we supported the project by providing high quality physical activity sessions across all 12 schools, reaching over 300 children. Click here to see our impact graphics.
September 2024
Summer of Fun 2024: Our Summer of Fun programme returned for its second year, and over a six week period we offered a variety of sessions and camps for participants aged 2-25 years old and their families. We provided 66 different opportunities, which included a mix of different programmes, sessions, and camps.
This year, 40 of the opportunities were at a cost. This allowed us to subsidise the cost of delivering the programme and aimed to cut down on the number of people booking and not turning up. We also implemented a new booking system. In total we received 1,340 bookings through our new system. To deliver the programme we partnered with Cambrian Village Trust, Cynon Valley PALS, FAW, Cwm Cycling Cynon and Rhondda, YEPS, Leisure for Life, Aberaman LGFC, Rhondda Dragons Dodgeball, Dare Valley Flyers, Rhondda Ladies Hockey Club, and Caerphilly and RCT Hockey Club. Click here to see our impact graphics.
August 2024
Road to Paris 2024 Schools Challenge: National School Sport Week 2024 ran from June 17th to 21st. To celebrate NSSW we asked schools to engage with our Road to Paris challenge. The challenge consisted of 5 Olympic themed activities, one per day. Each morning, we shared a new challenge, delivered by a Commonwealth and/or Olympic athlete. Schools were asked to complete the challenge and share evidence with us via social media or email.
We selected one winner each day and rewarded them with sports equipment. At the end of the week, we evaluated which schools had engaged with the challenge the most and announced them as our bronze, silver and gold winners. 20 schools engaged with the challenge, and we received 32 competition entries. Over 750 children took part. Click here to see our impact graphics.
July 2024
Pontypridd Swimming Club - Masters session: Pontypridd Swimming Club launched their Master’s Swimming group in February 2024, after delivering some pilot sessions in January. It is one of their five swim groups and is an integral part of the club. 8 members have joined so far, with a mix of ex competitive swimmers and newcomers. The club hope to grow the group further, welcoming more Masters members. Two coaches support the sessions, offering advice and tips to improve technique and efficiency.
The hope is that some Masters swimmers will become involved in other club activities such as coaching, officiating, participating in galas and committee membership. We have recently supported the Masters group with £400 of training equipment through our Community Sport Fund. Click here to see our impact graphics.
June 2024
Primary school Netball league – Aberdare: Angharad from Aberdare Town CIW School approached us with an idea to run a netball league during the spring term. We agreed to support Angharad, so she contacted all schools in the Aberdare cluster, and 8 schools signed up. We paid the facility hire for 7 weeks and purchased a shield for the winning school. Angharad sorted the fixtures and recruited teachers to umpire all of the matches. We provided some schools with netball equipment, allowing them to hold training sessions.The league concluded, with Llwydcoed Primary School crowned as champions.
In the summer term, the schools came back together for a celebration day where they played more netball and enjoyed fun activities. We attended the day, along with Dare Valley Flyers netball club who promoted their teams. Click here to see our impact graphics.
May 2024
Sports club promotion in schools: Each year we work in partnership with sports clubs to offer taster sessions in primary and secondary schools. The taster sessions offer young people the opportunity to try a new sport and have fun. The sessions give sports clubs a fantastic platform to promote their club, and potentially gain new members. We offer clubs flyers and/or golden tickets, which allow them to promote their teams and training sessions.
Last term we worked with 4 sports clubs, Rhondda Dragons Dodgeball Club, Rhondda Ladies Hockey Club, Aberaman Ladies and Girls FC and Harlequin Bowls Clubs. These clubs delivered 55 taster sessions to over 2,500 children. Click here to see our impact graphics.
April 2024
Student placements: Our work based learning placements gave students in higher education the opportunity to apply their learning from their degree and to gain real life experience, skills, build confidence, gain insight in the sport sector and build professional relationships.
This academic year we recruited, trained, deployed, and mentored students from University of South Wales and Cardiff Metropolitan University. The students experienced a range of opportunities in our Active young people projects, Community sport and Physical activity projects, Young Ambassadors programme and PlayMakers award. Click here to see our impact graphics.
March 2024
Rhondda Dragons Dodgeball Club: Rhondda Dragons Dodgeball Club established a junior section in Hawthorn in 2023. After a slow start, we supported them with promotion, which included school taster sessions and a school tournament, and they grew to over 50 junior members. We also helped them to apply for a Sport Wales Be Active grant, where they received £976 for equipment.
As the only dodgeball club in RCT, and with their junior sessions in Hawthorn going so well, the club decided to branch out and deliver sessions in the Rhondda. Again, we supported them and arranged for them to deliver taster sessions in 11 primary schools. Over 1000 children enjoyed the taster sessions, and they now have 25 children attending a community dodgeball session per week. Click here to see our impact graphics.
February 2024
Become a Community Coach: A partnership we formed with RCT Work and Skills proved to be very successful following the completion of the SPF People and Skills Programme funded by UK Government.
We delivered sector specific training which was tailored to give individuals who had a keen interest in sport, the opportunity to progress onto employment within the Coaching Industry. The course which was delivered over a six week period consisted of both theory and practical modules. Click here to see our impact graphics.
January 2024
Dark in the Park Pontypridd: We started Dark in the Park Pontypridd in January 2019 in partnership with Newydd Housing. The project aimed to increase usage of the park and provide a safe environment for running during the winter months. It initially targeted non-runners, but sessions attracted a mix of running abilities, from beginners to regular runners.
5 years on its still going. Over 200 sessions have been delivered and in total, 240 different people have engaged with the sessions. Many of the participants have progressed from non-runners to regular runners completing 5ks, 10ks and even half marathons. A lot of the group members regularly attend Pontypridd parkrun which takes place in the same park. Click here to see our impact graphics and click here to read our full case study.
December 2023
Rhondda Back to Netball: Having had success in other areas of RCT with ‘Back to’ and Walking Netball, we decided to start a new ‘Back to Netball’ session in the Rhondda. With no regular sessions in the area, we were aware of a growing demand, and we organised a taster session. The initial session was successful so we organised a block of sessions to run for 10 weeks. The sessions were aimed at women who had played netball previously, back in school, or those who were completely new to the sport. The sessions offered a non-competitive environment to for women to enjoy a fun and social physical activity.
After the ten-week block finished, the group were keen for the sessions to continue, so a small number of the women took responsibility of the group. They deliver the sessions, book the facility, and look after the equipment. Over 15 women now attend each week, with over 30 having attended at least once. We hope to see this session remain long term and we will continue to support the group as they develop. Click here to see our impact graphics.
November 2023
Ynysybwl Fitbit project: We worked with a group of parents at Trerobart Primary school that expressed interest in our Fitbit project as they were looking for support to improve their well-being. Each week we attended the coffee morning sessions to meet with the group. We discussed their progress and any difficulties they had encountered that week. Each individual was then given a personal target for the following week.
Over a 10-week period the participants increased their step count by 383,590 which was an increase on average of 38,359 per person. Participants commented that the project had motivated them to get more active, held them accountable, given them both structure and flexibility, and improved their understanding. Click here to see our impact graphics and click here to read our full case study.
October 2023
Made for Mams Aqua Natal Yoga delivered by midwives: We have worked in partnership with the Public Health Specialist Midwife for Cwm Taf Morgannwg University Health Board over the last few years to develop our Made for Mams programme. We both recognised the benefits of training midwives to take classes and decided to explore this as a progression for the programme. We sources an Aqua Natal Yoga training course provider and arranged a private Aqua Natal Yoga course for 6 midwives to attend. We then liaised with RCT Leisure Services to identify suitable venues which had availability to host the new sessions. The sessions ran at both venues for 6 weeks, and feedback from participants was very positive.
We would like to take this opportunity to celebrate Sharon Webber, the Public Health Specialist Midwife who was our partner for this project. Sharon was recently celebrated as Nurse of the Year by the Royal College of Nursing in Wales, in the Category of Improving Individual and Population Health, for her smoking cessation service. Well done Sharon! Click here to see our impact graphics and click here to read our full case study.
September 2023
Our Summer of Fun programme: Our 2023 Summer of Fun programme ran for six weeks, during the summer holidays, and offered a programme of fun activities, across different areas of Rhondda Cynon Taf, to get children under the age of 11 and their families active. We provided 56 different opportunities, all with a focus on fun. The programme had a mix of different programmes, sessions and events, that were selected for different reasons.
Our FAW Just Play Football sessions aimed to get boys and girls aged 6-9 years playing and enjoying football, and focused on encouraging children who were not already a member of a football club to join.
We worked with RCT Leisure Services to deliver the Multi-Sport camps in Aberdare, because the venue which had identified a demand from their local community for junior sports sessions during the school holidays. We delivered a series of sport specific camps, working in partnership with local football and netball camps, to promote the clubs and boost their junior membership.
We also partnered with Cwm Cycling Cynon to offer Ride a Bike days, promoting the hire service they have and allowing families to hire and ride for free in a beautiful setting.
Our Outdoor Family Fun events offered families an opportunity to get active together. The events were targeted at families with children aged 2 to 7 and they included an active story trail, balance bikes and sports tots sessions. Research shows that children are more likely to be active if their parents and family are active. As well as taking part on the day, families were sent home with equipment and resources which we hope will support them to continue being active as a family, helping to create physically literate children.
In total 1,015 different people attended our programme, with 1,498 engagements. Click here to see our impact graphics and click here to read our full case study.
August 2023
SuperAgers Aqua Aerobics in Ferndale Swimming Pool: The Aqua Aerobics project was developed from a weekly SuperAgers Chair Aerobics session that was being delivered in Maerdy Community centre with The Fern Partnership. Those attending the session expressed interest in Aqua Aerobics and were confident that there was enough demand for a session. The session was established in April and 23 older adults have attended, with an average of 17 attending each week. The sessions are not only an opportunity to be active, but also a social opportunity. Many attendees said that since the pandemic they haven't been going out and doing things like they were before, and this session has given them the confidence to start socialising more. For the full story, you can read this case study.
July 2023
Mountain Ash Comprehensive School: Two Gold Young Ambassadors from Mountain Ash Comprehensive School applied to our Dragon's Den for funding to deliver a project. They wanted to offer new opportunities and encourage more young people in their school to be physically active. They were successful in receiving £450 funding from us to launch a Kin Ball project. They deliver Kin Ball during PE lessons and are looking to start an after-school club. Watch this video to find out more.
June 2023
St Gabriel and Raphael Roman Catholic Primary School: Four pupils from SS Gabriel and Raphael Catholic Primary School were nominated to be Bronze Young Ambassadors. After attending our conference, they returned to school and developed a project to improve the health, wellbeing, and fitness levels of their peers. They wanted to encourage non-active pupils to become active during breaktime, and they identified a need to improve their school yard. The yard is small, and they found that football dominated playtimes and stopped other children from being active. They believed that organising the yard into sections would give all children equal and safe opportunities to take part. Watch this video to find out more.
May 2023
Caegarw Primary School: Following a successful application to our Foundation School Fund, the school set up an after-school balance bike club for foundation age pupils. One teacher attended training and she delivered 6 fun balance bike sessions to 5 children. The children loved the sessions and they all increased in confidence and improved their skills. Families attended the final session and parents were impressed with the progress the children had made. The school also operate a balance bike rental scheme, allowing families to hire the bikes for weekends and school holidays. Watch this video to find out more.
April 2023
This month we celebrate our partnership with University of South Wales Sport. As part of their placements, students have worked with us to deliver sport and physical activity projects within schools. 22 students completed 1470 hours in 10 schools, engaging 552 children. Below is a brief summary of each project.
Bodringallt Primary School - This project aimed to develop fundamental movement skills through fun games and activities. Students delivered multi-sports/skilled sessions targeting children aged between 4-11. Click here to see the impact of the project.
Caegarw Primary School - This project aimed to develop Badminton in the school. The children wanted to try a new sport, so students actively targeted years 4 & 5 and gave them the skills and knowledge they needed to confidently take part in this new activity. Click here to see the impact of the project.
Cwmbach Church in Wales Primary School - This project aimed to develop fundamental movement skills by giving children a range of opportunities to try new sports. Students focused on team sports with children aged 7-11, developing throwing and catching skills. Click here to see the impact of the project.
Mountain Ash Comprehensive School - This project aimed to increase the physical activity & confidence levels of girls in Years 7 & 8. Students worked to create a safe and comfortable environment for them to take part in football. Click here to see the impact of the project.
Penyrenglyn Primary School - This project aimed to give children the opportunity to try new sports and games. Students tailored sessions to develop skills such as teamwork, problem solving and fundamental movement skills. Click here to see the impact of the project.
Gwaunfarren Primary School - Students worked with the school and Active Merthyr to develop a range of fundamental movement skills with Year 1 pupils. They placed emphasis on the importance of regular physical activity including the range of health benefits. Click here to see the impact of the project.
Ynyshir Primary School - This project aimed to increase the participation levels of Years 2 & 3, in a bid to make up for opportunities lost during the Covid Pandemic. Students used creative themes to develop sessions that focussed on confidence. Click here to see the impact of the project.
Hawthorn Primary School - This project introduced children to new activities, while boosting their confidence and supporting them to further develop relationships with peers. Students targeted children from reception to year 4 with a multi-skills intervention. Click here to see the impact of the project.
Hafod Primary School - This project worked with the school's Bronze Young Ambassadors to deliver sporting activities. A variety of sessions and new clubs were developed and delivered, based on pupil consultation. Click here to see the impact of the project.
Blaengwawr Primary School - This project used inclusive multi-skill PE sessions to teach children how to work together as a team. Students targeted children from nursery to year 3 with outdoor activity sessions. Click here to see the impact of the project.
March 2023
Aberdare Town Church In Wales Primary School: Pupil voice sessions uncovered that children felt stressed and worried, following the pandemic. With this in mind the school applied to our School Fund to develop a new Yoga after-school club. They hoped that this would have a positive impact on the emotional, mental and physical well-being of the children. The funding bought new equipment and a teacher agreed to deliver the sessions. A range of Yoga/Pilates stretches as well as mindfulness relaxation was delivered through story. All pupils enjoyed the sessions, with 100% of them stating that they felt happier and 83% stating that they were more confident. Watch this video to find out more.
February 2023
Hafod Primary School: The schools’ Bronze Young Ambassadors applied to our school fund to set up a new Hockey after-school club. The funding allowed them to buy equipment and resources. The Ambassadors also loaned this equipment out during play time. Watch this video to find out more.